lundi 29 décembre 2014

Christmas lights in Paris !

Christmas illuminations in France is known as "illuminations de Noël". They are lights used in decorating buildings and trees, and also across streets in December for the holiday season.
These decorations cost a lot of money and also waste electricity, but are very beautiful when the lights come on at night that they have become a source of tourist attractions.

Paris is known all over the world for it's beautiful decorations during Christmas that tourists from all over the world visit France during this period to see the decoration of the most beautiful avenue in the world, Champs Elysées.

Several streets are decorated beautiful with multi-coloured bulbs leaving Paris looking like a magical fairy-tale world. The lights often come on at 6pm ( note that in winter it starts getting dark as early as 4pm in several parts of France), and they'll be put off at 2 am every day. On the 1st of January, they'll stay on until dawn.

Every year, around November, the Mayor of Paris and a popular celebrity switch on the Christmas lights along the famous Champs Elysées shopping boulevard in the French Capital.

This year, on Thursday 20th November at 6pm, Omar Sy, a popular 36-year-old French comedian and actor was chosen to switch on the Christmas lights alogside the Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.

The 400 trees along side the la plus belle et la plus grande avenue du monde was adorned with lights so that Paris could live up to its name la Ville Lumière. A sightseeing bus tour called « Illuminations de Paris », has been put in place by Paris CityVision. Tourist are able to discover the beautiful and magical Christmas Illuminations at nightfall.

This year's theme is "Scintillance". The lights used for decorations are made up of one million low-energy LED bulbs powered entirely from a solaire energy farm outside Paris. This method which was adopted in 2006 has been successful in cutting down the cost of the Christmas Illumination in Paris; the kilowatt consumption has been reduced by 97%.